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Opening Up a Path to Four-Year Degrees

PHILADELPHIA — At the end of his first year at the Community College of Philadelphia, Christopher Thomas decided that his goal — to go back to school and get a degree — was no longer worth it. He was in debt from thousands of dollars in student loans. After class, he rode a bus an hour and a half to a suburban restaurant where he worked as a waiter. When the shift ended at midnight, it took him three buses to get home. He couldn’t afford a computer, so in the middle of the night, he walked to his aunt’s house and used hers to finish his class work.

He got seven A’s and a C, but the plan was for eight.

Mr. Thomas was 36, living in a spare bedroom at his grandmother’s house and doing much of his sleeping on the Route 124 bus. “I’m done,” he told friends.

But he wasn’t. A woman in the college’s Institutional Advancement department, Patricia Conroy, kept sending e-mails about a $2,000 scholarship. “WHY DON’T YOU APPLY FOR THIS,” she wrote. He won one. Professors spoke about his promise. Friends said it would be a crime.

“My dream of a 4.0 was gone,” he said. “I figured what it would take for a 3.9. If I aced out, I still might not make it, but a 3.89 was possible.”

Increasingly, the students here are making that jump. Dawn-Stacy Joyner, a former hospital cook, will also attend the University of Pennsylvania. Nine women graduating this spring have been accepted to Bryn Mawr. Larry Thi, who hopes to become a teacher, transferred to the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

It’s partly the economic collapse. The Community College of Philadelphia costs $4,400 a year for city residents; the most expensive private colleges are $60,000. Getting an associate degree first can save $100,000.

“These students are choosing community colleges with the intention that this is their path to selective institutions,” Mr. Risley said.

Photo

Christopher Thomas finished the Community College of Philadelphia with a 3.91 G.P.A. and is headed to the University of Pennsylvania this fall.Credit
Mark Makela for The New York Times

Indeed, one of my own sons graduated from our local community college and in January entered New York University as a junior.

For elite schools, community colleges offer racial and economic diversity; the college here is 55 percent black. “Colleges are looking for high completion levels, and the best community college students complete,” Mr. Risley said.

Since 2005, the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation has given 400 scholarships of up to $30,000 a year to outstanding community college students to continue their studies. Those students have gone on to average a 3.5 G.P.A. and a 90 percent completion rate, according to Emily Froimson, a spokeswoman.

The foundation also gives up to $1 million to four-year institutions to recruit community college graduates. Among the colleges and universities that have been chosen are the University of Michigan; Cornell; Amherst; the University of California, Berkeley; the University of North Carolina; and Bryn Mawr.

Most of the nine here who have been accepted by Bryn Mawr have had their struggles. Taj Meyer had an eating disorder and did not make it through high school. Neither did Adrienne Baugher, who battled addiction. Remi Demarest left home as a girl and was raised by an aunt and uncle. Meg Booth is a single mother.

They range in age from Mary Chessen, 21, who transferred from the Art Institute of Chicago, to Kimberly Stuart, who is 38 and was working as a film grip when she started here in 2007.

Lija Geller flunked out of Temple and was embarrassed to be going here. “I’d get off the subway at Spring Garden,” she said. “The Temple kids stay on to the Cecil B. Moore stop. It felt like they knew I went to community college.”

Ms. Booth and Ms. Baugher have supported themselves by working as waitresses; Ms. Geller spent a year and a half as a dog walker; Ms. Demarest was a receptionist at a nail salon. “I wanted a second chance,” she said, “which is what a community college gives you.”

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From left, Taj Meyer, Remi Demarest, Lija Geller, Kimberly Stuart, Adrienne Baugher and Meg Booth, at the Community College of Philadelphia, are attending Bryn Mawr this fall.Credit
Mark Makela for The New York Times

Bryn Mawr had not occurred to them. “Not even in my realm of thought,” said Ms. Baugher, who will major in biology.

In the two decades after graduating from Central High School in Philadelphia, Mr. Thomas worked a series of clerical and administrative jobs.

Starting college at 36, he was hungry for knowledge. He was always a big reader — Shakespeare, John Steinbeck, Richard N. Wright, Ralph W. Ellison. But not until he took an African-American studies course did he understand how little he knew of Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, James Weldon Johnson. “I was ashamed when I realized,” he said.

People have told him that majoring in education would be a waste of an Ivy League degree, but his goal is to return to Central High and teach American history.

It was his developmental psychology professor, Vince Castronuovo, who first put the idea of the University of Pennsylvania in his head. “He told me it’s the place for a guy like you.”

Mr. Thomas was in one of the college’s computer centers on March 27 when he got the e-mail saying he had been accepted.

He has been chosen to deliver a speech at his graduation next month, and he recently finished a first draft. A lot of it will be about what determination and the right support can do for a person.

For weeks he has been looking for a part-time job, even for minimum wage. Last week he interviewed at an ice cream shop, but he has not heard anything yet.

He still doesn’t own a computer, but he thinks he’ll be getting one for graduation. It’s supposed to be a surprise, but his aunt let it slip that she didn’t know how anyone could make it through college without one.

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A version of this article appears in print on April 16, 2012, on page A10 of the New York edition with the headline: Opening Up a Path To Four-Year Degrees. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe